


A Day in the Middlelife

by celli



Category: The Middleman (TV)
Genre: Art Crawl, Female Character of Color, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 11:43:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2810849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celli/pseuds/celli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Don’t be silly, Dubby. The Interrodroid can’t possibly malfunction in such a sophisticated way. It doesn’t get any more complicated than homicidal, really.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Day in the Middlelife

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Theo_Winterwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theo_Winterwood/gifts).



> Thanks to K, F, C, and Twitter for fighting off BEARS for me!

THE JOLLY FATS WEHAWKIN EMPLOYMENT AGENCY  
1300 CURIOSITY ROVER TIME

Wendy was early to work.

“You’re early to work,” Ida said, never taking her eyes off the circuit board she was building. The dim light of electronics in sleep mode made her eyes look white. Oh, no, that was the built-in flashlights she was using to see her work better.

Wendy yawned into the chocolate milk bottle she was hiding her coffee in. “Do I get a cookie?”

“On top of your special brownies? Wouldn’t want to spoil you.”

Wendy let the door to the temp agency lobby slam shut behind her. “Why show restraint now?”

“Dare I ask why we’ve been granted this unexpected pleasure?”

“Because,” Wendy said, peering over at the circuit board until Ida shone her pupil-flashlights in her face, “We have an ART CRAWL tonight!” She raised her fist. “I’m just hoping to get the freaky case of the day over with as soon as possible so I can get back on time.”

“I’ll be sure to inform all the monsters, aliens, and assorted evildoers of your strict timeline.”

“Good to know all is well on the Western Front,” Wendy said. She raised her voice. “Middleman! I’m here for Middleduty!”

She heard a thumping in the distance. “Is Interrodroid 9500 out again?”

“Maybe it’s gone homicidal again, “Ida said, tweaking something on the circuit board with her right elbow screwdriver. “You should go find out.”

Wendy eyed the circuit board that probably didn’t look like it belonged on the Interrodroid. Ida looked up and smiled. Well, that was creepy.

She headed down the corridor to the subcorridor. Then to the subcorridor’s subcorridor. Three subcorridors later, in a niche beyond a curtained doorway, she found the source of the sounds.

“Hey, Middleboss,” she said. 

The Middleman looked up from the box he was elbow deep in. Bare forearm-deep in; his Middlejacket was hung neatly on a trumpet sticking out from the wall behind him, and his Middleshirt was rolled up to his elbows. Also, he had Middledirt across his Middlenose. “Dubby! You’re here early.”

“You’re here dirty,” Wendy said. “Is this a mirror universe thing? Or has Interrodroid 9500 malfunctioned so it attacks nattily-dressed Middleneatniks?”

“Don’t be silly, Dubby. The Interrodroid can’t possibly malfunction in such a sophisticated way. It doesn’t get any more complicated than homicidal, really.”

“I, for one, am relieved.” Wendy looked around the room: It was relatively large - maybe twice the size of the locker room, or 5/8 the size of Sensei Ping’s instruction training room. It was stacked four or five feet high on every wall with half-closed boxes, file folders, and general detritus.

Also, there was a giant hatch in the middle of the floor, currently open. A tendril of smoke rose steadily out of it. It smelled like someone barbecuing...a bunch of ink pens?

“Just promise me you’re not burning books,” she said.

“Love in the Time of Cholera, Dubby! How could you even suggest such a thing?”

Wendy took another sniff of the air. “First it’s pens. Then it’s a slippery slope to notepads. And who knows what depravity can happen after that?”

The Middleman still looked halfway to milk-drinkingly annoyed. “Just for that, you get the file cabinet.” He pointed behind her. Wendy turned to see a cabinet exactly her height and twice her armspan.

“Thanks?”

“A clean environment is a clean mind, Dubby.” The Middleman pulled a vase of silk dahlias, a block of kitchen knives, and three pens out of his box. He contemplated them briefly, then threw them all down the hatch. Something roared and the smoke coming out of the hatch increased. Ugh, pen smell.

“Okay, then.” Wendy opened the bottom drawer of the cabinet. “Let’s save you from yourself, weird hatchy room.”

The Middleman sniffed audibly. “Is that _coffee_ I smell?”

Wendy chucked the milk bottle underhand into the hatch. “Nope.”

***

AN INCREASINGLY DECLUTTERED AND DEINKED BUT CLEARLY STILL IN PROGRESS MIDDLESTORAGE ROOM  
400 PRE-ART CRAWL! TIME

Wendy pulled file folders “Middlereceipts 1932” to “Middlecutlery 1945” from the filing cabinet and made a show of verifying their contents. (They were accurate. They were always accurate. They were Middleorganized.) Then she tossed them over her shoulder, listening to the hiss of the furnace. She'd hit hatch on 372 of 373 tosses, and for 373 she couldn’t be responsible for the Middleman throwing a box of various Middlethings there at the same time. Especially since her good ripped shorts were now stained with ink.

She was just reaching for the next folder when her phone went off. She looked at the picture of a teddy bear head on her phone screen. “Lace, what’s up?”

A barrage of words poured out. Wendy stopped breathing. “What? Is he oka--well yeah, but--can’t--okay, don’t--right, okay, Lacey? LACEY. Breathe. Let me think for a minute.”

She paused, then looked around to where the Middleman was digging through a box over and over, decidedly not listening. Wendy grinned. “I’ve got it covered, Lacey. No, it’s a surprise. Back ASAP!”

“I hope everything’s okay,” the Middleman said behind her as Wendy studiously returned to her filing.

“Oh, not at all,” she said. “We have ART CRAWL! tonight.” She put her fist in the air. The Middleman cautiously lifted his to about shoulder height, then put it right back down. “Lacey has this great confrontational spoken word performance art piece planned. Noser was supposed to stand under the sheet behind her while she bemoaned the ghosts of landfill diapers past, but he snapped a guitar string this morning practicing for his retrospective of the best 50 acoustic guitar songs of all time.” She slapped her thigh. “Got him right across the quadriceps.”

“Fire and Rain, that sounds painful.”

Wendy shrugged. “Anyway, so now she needs someone who can stand for forty-five minutes. But It’ll all be fine. I’m just going to ask Pip.”

The Middleman’s hands tightened on the box. One side ripped halfway down, causing pens to spill out and hit the floor with a hundred little clicks. “Pip?”

“He’s still a little nervous around us. It’s perfect.” Wendy checked her Middlewatch ostentatiously. “Man, I don’t think I’ll be done with this cabinet until right before the show. I’d better call--”

There was a loud clatter as the cabinet crashed to the floor, spilling out a baker’s thousand of files in a direct line to the furnace hatch.

“Looks like you’re done early, Dubby,” the Middleman said from behind the cabinet. “You should probably get home and check on Lacey. I’m sure she’s upset. And Noser might need you too.”

“Now that you mention it, Boss…” Wendy flipped a half-salute his way and exited stage left mission accomplished.


End file.
